Daily
Devotional

In the early years of our marriage, our apartment had an interesting feature: the floor was wooden parquet (a checkerboard arrangement of wooden tiles) over a slab with radiant heat. For much of the time that we lived there, I did not really appreciate this feature. It had a slow response to changes in the outside temperature, and I did a fair amount of griping about it.  

Eventually, however, we moved to our first house with conventional heating. And then I started to miss what I previously had! I missed being able to walk around barefoot—even on the coldest of days—with comfortable rather than cold feet. The difference was especially noticeable in the bathroom—cold vinyl versus warm radiant heating. I had not really appreciated what I had until I lost it!

On a larger scale, it is possible to take much more important things for granted, never really appreciating them. If we are blessed with good health, we might not think much of it—until the day we become seriously ill. Also, it is possible to take for granted the love of our family, or even of our spouse. I realized this could happen when my wife and I attended a retreat for couples, where we were asked to think of how we would feel if we suddenly lost our companion. I recognized that if this should happen to me, I would be devastated. The obvious next question was whether I treated my wife daily as if she were that important to me. Since that wakeup call, I have tried harder to show her my love and appreciation.

Taking any blessing for granted is unwise. Most foolish of all would be to take our spiritual blessings for granted. If we are saved, then God has literally done a miracle in our lives! He has transformed us from vile sinners to saints of God. Yet, it is possible over time for the wonder of this miracle to grow dim, so that our salvation somehow does not seem as marvelous as it once did. The danger of this is that if we do not really appreciate what we have, we are more prone to letting it go.

In our focus verse, we are reminded of the necessity of grasping what Jesus did for us and is even now doing for us. This must be more than head knowledge; we need to feel it deeply in our hearts so we can appreciate it as we ought. And the best way I know of doing that is to prayerfully, quietly, meditate on Jesus. Follow Jesus to the Cross, where He bled and died for your sins and mine. Consider that He could have called myriads of angels to fight against the workers of Satan. Instead, He allowed Himself to be crucified, so that you and I might be saved. We can ask God to help us to really grasp the wonder and beauty of what Jesus did.

As we sincerely reach out to Christ in this way, we are in no danger of forgetting to appreciate Him.